Carragher the measure of Macca’s fate

Nov 25 2007 by Neil Farrington, Sunday Sun

I was one of those who predicted the ruin that would be wreaked by Steve McClaren.

Trouble is, I was only one of several million people, even as early as the night England went out of the 2006 World Cup, who saw it coming.

But even his biggest doubters can’t have expected McClaren to cock up so often, and ultimately so completely.

And one mistake stands out in my eyes as the truest measure of his failings – as a man-manager, a coach and a tactician.

It was a worse error than throwing Scott Carson to the lions in midweek when he should have been blooded against the lambs of Group E up to a year ago.

Worse than ignoring the fact that England can never play for a draw by playing for a draw against Croatia.

Worse than plucking a 3-5-2 formation off the shelf marked “may cause an allergic reaction among English footballers” for the crunch tie in Croatia.

No, if one thing – or rather one name – stands as a monument to McClaren’s folly, it is Jamie Carragher.

Would panic have gripped England’s back four throughout 90 minutes on Wednesday night had Carragher been among them?

With messrs Terry and Ferdinand absent, Liverpool’s finest would surely have come into his own.

Except Liverpool’s finest wasn’t at Wembley. Wasn’t injured. Wasn’t suspended. Just wasn’t there.

Why? Because McClaren, in his infinite idiocy, preferred a half-fit Ledley King and the permanently half-there Wes Brown to Carragher when Rio Ferdinand and Gary Neville were unavailable against Estonia in June.

The result? Carragher decided that if England didn’t want him, he wasn’t that bothered about England.

Some might see that as proof of the arrogance among the players McClaren had to work with.

As Carragher is about as far removed from a prima donna as any Premier League player, I’d say the fault was McClaren’s.

And, like so many of his other mistakes, it cost him in the end.